Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told thousands of supporters on Friday that he wants an early presidential election to end a political crisis after months of deadly anti-regime protests.

"We call for an early presidential election in a democratic way, in order to avoid bloodshed," Saleh said, a day after officials from his ruling party and the opposition said a Gulf-brokered deal that would see him leave office in 30 days was to be inked on Sunday.

It’s official! Lebanon is still a priority for the U.S. although President Barack Obama did not address the situation in the country in his “historic” speech on Thursday.

“The democratic changes in the region started in Lebanon in 2005,” U.S. embassy spokesman Ryan Gliha said about the Cedar Revolution that drove Syrian troops out of Lebanon in the aftermath of the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.

A keynote speech by President Barack Obama on U.S. Middle East policy offered nothing new but simply reaffirmed Washington's staunch support for Israel, Syria's official SANA news agency said on Friday.

"The U.S. president's speech on the Middle East had nothing new as far as his country's policies on the peace process, the situation in Iraq or security or regional stability are concerned," the news agency said.

Top Republican contenders for the White House in 2012 accused President Barack Obama on Thursday of betraying staunch U.S. ally Israel in his new long-shot push for Middle East peace.

"President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus," thundered former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, generally viewed as the frontrunner in the race for the party's presidential nomination.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called an "urgent" leadership meeting Thursday to examine U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policy speech, an aide said.

But his tentative partners in the Islamist Hamas movement immediately called on Obama to take "concrete steps" not merely issue "slogans" in support of Palestinian independence and an end to Israeli occupation.

Israel should not be asked to withdraw to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, Israel's prime minister said Thursday, after U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East policy speech.

In a statement issued after the speech, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office called on Washington to confirm it would adhere to "assurances" given to Israel by former president George W. Bush in 2004.

U.S. President Barack Obama declared Thursday that the borders of Israel and a Palestinian state must be based on 1967 lines, likely setting up a new clash with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a long-awaited survey of the "Arab spring" of revolts, Obama compared "shouts of human dignity" across the region to America's birth pangs and civil rights struggles, and said the uprisings showed repression would not work.

Syria denounced Thursday U.S. sanctions imposed on President Bashar al-Assad and top aides, saying they were part of long-time efforts by Washington to impose its will in the region to Israel's benefit.

The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests, meanwhile called for fresh demonstrations on Friday for "liberty and national unity."

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday sanctioned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six top aides over their crackdown on popular protests, telling Assad to launch a transition to democracy or step down.

Obama signed the executive order to "increase pressure on the government of Syria to end its use of violence and begin transitioning to a democratic system that ensures the universal rights of the Syrian people," the document said.

U.S. President Barack Obama will Thursday seek to sketch a plausible policy response to the sudden, complex and often contradictory demands thrown up by an "Arab Spring" of popular revolt.

In a major speech, Obama will seek to quell domestic criticism and uncertainty in the Middle East and North Africa about the exact nature of U.S. policy.